Scar Tissue
by Amvonz
Summary: It hurt to see her face, crumpled like a smashed mirror when she begged the doctor to get it out of her. It hurt to see the disappointment when she couldn't sit up fast enough and it hurt to hear the crack in her voice when she called for her squad mates in her sleep. Sequel to "Vulnerable"


Warning for sensitive themes including survivor's guilt and miscarriage.

* * *

Petra woke to a warm cloth on her forehead, water dripping down into her lashes.

Without opening her eyes, she reached up and grasped his wrist, pulling the hand away from her face. She wouldn't say it out loud, but her mind flashed back to the moment she'd woken up, when she thought Levi was the same monster that had killed her squadmates, returned to finish her off.

"What are you doing?"

Her exhausted throat barely squeezed the phrase out, smoky words escaping in a whisper.

The sound of cloth twisting and water dripping into a pan clouded Petra's ears, her still stinging eyes relaxing back into sleep.

"The captain told me you were warm. He's right. I want to make sure you don't develop an infection."

Amber eyes snapped open. The doctor.

She swallowed down that ache in her chest, and asked what time it was. The man pulled a golden pocket watch from inside his vest.

"Ten past six in the morning."

Red rimmed eyes danced across the room, to the corners where moonlight cast shadows, the shut door, the burning candles. Her tongue skimmed over the roof of her mouth, traced along the edge of her teeth. Where had he gone? She wanted to know.

Instead, she asked the doctor for his name.

"Ezra Gottlieb."

"Thank you, Doctor Gottlieb."

He offered a dry smile in response, the wrinkles not reaching his eyes. Petra couldn't even bother with being insulted by the fake niceties. They both were weighed down with exhaustion. Cold hands pressed against her neck, her wrist. Fingers pushed against her jaw until she popped her mouth open.

Satisfied, the doctor pulled back.

"You need to refrain from walking for a few days."

Dr Gottlieb took note of the expression on her face, an all too familiar mix he recalled from his very first days as a doctor in Wall Sina, before enlisting. It didn't really matter where he went. Fear of abandonment looked the same on everyone.

* * *

The next time she saw Levi, almost a week later, her aching had swelled and shrunk, twisting into a tight wire ready to snap. She'd cried and thrown things and felt totally useless. She looked in the mirror and wondered where the hell Petra went. Who was this terrified, furious woman?

Gottlieb had seen it in in her face that morning, and assigned a soldier to accompany her. It was meant, Gottlieb assured, to give the soldier some actual experience, as she wanted to become a field doctor.

And of course, Petra thought, I couldn't brush my hair without someone to do it for me.

The soldier was nice enough. A woman named Meg, in the Legion for nearly a year since transferring from the Military Police. Her presence, supposed to soothe Petra, only infuriated her more.

How are you feeling? Would you like more water? Please don't sit up so quickly! Your back is still healing.

She wondered if any other soldier would have gotten a live in nurse, and if she thought too long about what made her different, she felt sick. Any other soldier might have been sent home. Did they pity her because she lost the child? Did they want to go soft on her because she was a woman? Or did she get to stay in her own room with a nurse because they knew she'd slept with the Captain? All the options revolted her.

* * *

Every night, the dark of her room became the shade of the forest, and as much as she fought against it, her mind could not beat out the erratic racing of her heart.

The girl would shift in her cot and the rustle of cloth kept Petra wide awake.

There was the horror of lying awake at night, of burying her face into her pillow and then coming up, gasping for air, suffocated by the metallic stink of blood.

Sleep was the best reprieve, but only led to that unfaltering hollowness that came upon her every morning. She detested waking up. She'd woken up to the news of her miscarriage, to an empty bed, to horrors she didn't dare speak of.

Sometimes, she'd whisper apologies into her pillow, imagine that Gunter was right beside her, her hand on his, blood seeping into the cloth. It was only her tired, salty tears. Still she'd whimper out her apologies, insist that she wished it had been her instead of him. His hand felt cold, clasped in her shaking grip. He wouldn't look at her, his eyes frozen and indifferent, but she'd plead her sorries anyway.

Other nights she held tight to herself and felt the shape of Erd's body, and would tug at her skin - his skin - as though she could put him back together with her fingers. She grabbed at his spine, covered in gore, slimy and broken, but maybe if she dreamt hard enough, salvageable. Maybe, once she could walk again, she could crawl through the leaves and find the rest of him.

_Yes, once I can move I will put you back together._ She'd whisper this into the space between his ear and his neck, hands wrapped tight around his bones.

_But not now. I'm sorry I'm not strong enough yet. I won't abandon you, okay?_

Auruo haunted her worst of all, his face frozen, twisted into a gruesome, ravaged grimace. And Petra would hold his face in her hands, scold him through her tears for not surviving. How could he waste time trying to help her survive? He should have left, he should have run. She'd beat her fists against her chest.

_You've always been such a fucking idiot. Couldn't you be smart just once?_

They were always there, regret bruising her past her skin, past her muscle, on her very soul and mind, always. All she had was her bed and her memories.

She slept in their entrails, tangled in them, warm in the company of their horror until she woke, completely alone. Even her guts felt empty. Especially then. Because when all she had tangled herself in was the sheets and the blood was her sweat, she realized that not even their ghosts accompanied her. She was reminded that all she'd had left back in that God forsaken place, that unwanted seedling, had gone as well.

* * *

Then Levi walked through the door and it all snapped back in her mind. How the last time she'd seen him they'd clung to each other, poor souls lost at sea. How in the morning he'd disappeared.

"Do you think because I'm alone, I'll crawl on my hands and knees after you?"

Levi's face remained as calm and blank as ever. He blinked, shut his mouth, and then opened it again. She'd never spoken to him like that before.

"You're feverish. I will come back when you're feeling better."

The doorknob twisted in his hand.

"What? Am I only good to have around for when you feel like having yourself a cry?"

Levi froze in his retreat and turned again, shutting the door.

"First I'm here to be fucked, right?" The wet shine of her eyes betrayed her, startled him as much as her crude language. "Now I'm here for when you don't want anyone to see you as weak. You just want to be able to dump all of that on me, have me mop up all your shitty feelings and you get to walk away?"

She'd been standing on weak legs already, but her outburst sucked any remaining energy out of her and she plopped down onto her unmade bed.

He'd seen her angry before. Furious, even, the heat of her glares burning into every member of the squad at least once before. But this wasn't rage. She was wounded.

"I am still a captain, Petra. My military duties come before anything else, and you know that." She wanted to smile. He'd nearly bruised himself, the way he dodged her accusations.

"I know the Legion comes first." And she knew she ought to end it there, but all the hurt steamed up in her and she couldn't shut her mouth. It was right there, rehearsed in her mind again and again, choreographed to perfection.

"I know you're not a monster. But I'm more than a doll shut away in the bedroom. You can't abandon me like that." Petra wanted to swallow her tongue, felt disgusting for being so selfish and self-centered, but the words left her mouth nonetheless.

"You have never been someone shut away in a room." It was true, or it had been. But he couldn't ignore the fact that she hadn't been able to walk the length of her own room. That he needed to half carry her to the bathroom the last day he saw her.

"Don't start treating me like that. I'm not so fragile that you need to lie to me."

"You can't ride off into the sunset and take it for granted anymore. You can't pretend like it's all so puny and insignificant."

"Petra-"

She improvised.

"I would give anything to tell them goodbye."

This shut his mouth, hands falling back to his sides.

"So please, next time, at least say goodbye first."

The door opened behind him, handle pressing into his back.

"Oh, I'm sorry Captain. I didn't-" The girl.

"Leave."

She didn't argue, the door snapping shut behind Levi again and a tense silence entered the room.

Petra realized he had on a coat, slung over his shoulders as if to conceal his injury. He reached up and tugged the coat off his body, laying it across the back of a nearby chair. The spaces beneath his eyes were dark, bruised with exhaustion.

"We know who the female type is."

She had the slim boned look of Sina street rats, looked as pale as their noblewomen who wouldn't venture so much as a pinky in the sun.

"Who?"

"A graduate of the 104th. Annie Leonhardt." Petra savored the shared bitterness that came from Levi's tongue. "We attempted capture but she's enveloped herself in a crystal case. Hanji still hasn't figured it out."

Levi watched as Petra brushed her hand across her belly, light and without thinking.

"Where is she?"

"She's with Moblit right now, using every fucking weapon at our disposal to destroy the crystal samples."

"No, where is _she_."

The look that washed over his face struck right through Petra. Recognition and frustration shifted his features and it seemed too obvious now where he'd spent all those hours he was gone. Petra dreamed of piecing her friends together from all their raw bits and Levi wanted to tear the titan down until there was nothing left.

"She's been detained. Eren is alive."

* * *

They were in his room, after he'd returned from a session with the Pastor. He'd poured the coffee this time, and she sat on his bed, watching him write at his desk. They talked about the possibility of Petra putting on three dimensional maneuvering gear again, when she fell back into that confused silence she practically lived in.

That air chased Petra everywhere, kept her quiet and trapped in her own head - the last place Levi wanted her to be.

"Stop feeling guilty, Petra. No one could have guessed what would happen in the forest. You didn't know." The words came without any provocation on her part, nothing but the slump of Petra's shoulders forcing Levi to speak. He recognized it, the slope of her mouth and the drowsiness in her eyelids.

It was odd, that second skin level of intimacy they had now. Odd knowing just how and when the barriers had fallen.

"It's not that."

Levi set his pen down on the desk.

Her brows lifted, Can I be honest? But she didn't ask, knew that she didn't need permission, not even from him.

If he doesn't like it, she thought, he can leave. But of course her throat closed up around her tongue, her heart battling her mind over the truth fighting its way out of her mouth. _Leave?_ She scolded herself. _If you didn't care, why did you go half mad the last time you didn't see him?_

The silence of that day crept up on her and she pulled her arms in on herself. The quiet became unbearable for her. The quiet became the empty echo of the forest, the stench of blood and shit and vomit. She'd never forget it, the oppressive solitude at the base of the tree when she'd finally woken up, only that disgusting smell of death and her own broken body for company.

Levi leaned back into his chair, waiting.

"Petra."

"If I'd known, I wouldn't have kept the baby."

It was a twisted relief. A weight off her shoulders and a churn in her gut.

"I probably wouldn't have even told you about it if I knew. I would have just asked for a day off to see the doctor and…"

He sat, silenced for some time, accusations blooming in the air between them, and Petra wondered what drove her to admit it. His grey eyes remained on hers as he shifted in his chair, moving his weight around.

"Do you feel guilty about that?"

"No."

It came too quick, too ready. Petra sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest, fingers curling around her legs.

"I just -" She stopped to inhale, eyes downcast. "I don't know why it hurts so much." She felt like she'd just bared herself to him, not sure if his hand held a blade or a caress.

And there it was again, that force that tugged Levi towards her. It was her scream in the forest, her face in the medical ward, her tears in the bathroom. It was her yelling at him in her bedroom. It was her heart, right on his. Yet he somehow felt surprised by how her every cry and shout and withering gaze affected him. It used to infuriate him. How impossible she made it for him to forget himself, to completely abandon all empathy and humanity. She hadn't changed him - no one could. She just made it all the harder to let go.

She was staring at him, waiting for him to walk away or get angry or tell her they had bigger things at hand than her confused feelings.

Some tiny, ridiculously selfish part of him wanted to agree just to soothe her. To reply with "Me too." so that he wouldn't have to see the pained expression on her face. And though he'd felt pain, he knew that it mostly hurt because it hurt her. It hurt to see her face, crumpled like a smashed mirror when she begged the doctor to get it out of her. It hurt to see the disappointment when she couldn't sit up fast enough and it hurt to hear the crack in her voice when she called for her squadmates in her sleep. It only hurt to see her hand linger over her belly because he could feel her embarrassment. But he could not say in all honesty that he completely understood her.

When, at night, she would sometimes look to him and ask if he was angry with her, he would find himself hardly able to collect the words to respond. Angry with her? Then, after his silence had frightened her and she began to shed the tears that never saw the light of day, Levi would understand what Petra meant.

Her pain, much to his initial chagrin, left him in pain. But he didn't know what it meant to suffer such an unexpected loss, to wake every morning in grief over some abstract idea of a person, a thing she never wanted but missed with a crippling ache.

So he stood and brought his body down next to hers on the bed, not a word spoken between them. She didn't reach for him, just pressed the side of her hand against his. Perhaps this was the best way they could communicate. Just like in battle. Nothing but touch and sight and their intuition to guide them, yet they'd always found a way to meet in the middle.

* * *

The carriage dropped her off a block away from her old house. Levi had mentioned in passing, then more explicitly during breakfast, the uncertainty of a titan invasion at any moment. He talked about the unexplained sightings and disappearances with a smooth brow and calm tone, but the soldier in Petra understood his order. Be careful.

Her father expected a grand return, a reunion. And although he received the usual tight hug, he spent most of the day without his daughter.

Petra went straight to her old room and lied down, shutting the curtains. She sat among her old toys and felt that stomach churning pang in her heart. Thought about her father adoring bright blue eyes and inky hair the way she did.

At dinner he served her favorite dish. Spatzle noodles with cheese and onion and even paprika. He always saved the paprika for her visits. She wanted to say how much she'd missed him. They ate in silence.

"I tried visiting you at the headquarters to see how you were doing."

Petra's ears burned. She hadn't asked Levi how her father had reacted to the news of her injury. All she'd asked was if he'd seen her in the cart. Levi's eyes had flashed with something, a peculiar glint, and he looked away with a hard "No."

He'd probably worried himself sick. She should have visited earlier.

"I'm sorry, dad. You know they don't like civilians near training grounds."

The noodles were ash in her mouth.

"Well, that's alright. You're here now and that is what matters." He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

She rolled the words around in her head and decided she didn't like the feel of their implication.

"I'm not leaving the Scouting Legion."

Her father put down his fork and knife, the sharp clatter of metal against metal forcing Petra's gaze down to her lap.

There was a tiny pause as she twisted her skirt in her hands and he breathed in, loudly, before he yelled.

"Look at yourself! Don't you want to live? This war has ruined you. My daughter laughs and smiles and looks me in the face. She doesn't go through life sleeping with her eyes open. She lives!"

Petra didn't answer, unwilling to tell him of the fright that came with closing her eyes.

"Just how are you supposed to fight? You're black and blue all over. You could barely climb the stairs."

She'd already concocted a speech, a tirade on how living in the walls, idle and useless - that wasn't living. That would be throwing her life away.

Then, in a low, quiet voice he said, "When they came back, they wouldn't let me see you. How bad was it?"

How bad was it? She imagined how her father would take the news that she was lucky to be alive, let alone walk. The news that she may never bring a child into the family. That she needed a helper just to lace her boots on her bad days.

"I will heal."

A long stretch of silence ensued, dense and suffocating, the anxiety in her chest tightening by the second.

"Is this about Captain Levi?"

Petra looked back up, an electric rage running through her bones.

"This is about me."

"He couldn't protect you, Petra!"

"No, and he doesn't need to protect me. He is my captain. He leads me. I protect myself."

* * *

Petra was trying not to throw up during her physical exercise when they rolled Hanji in, bandaged and stinking, into the medical ward.

In fact, they brought in more than a dozen soldiers, all half awake and groaning, bandages tight around their foreheads.

Hanji had that grim brow that struck her every time she thought deeply, that made Petra worry what had happened at the wall, but she turned her head to face Petra and grinned.

"It looks like we're roommates!"

And despite it all, Petra smiled.

* * *

The squad became nothing but charred bone, thick smoke on the funeral pyre, and they took with them all they knew about Petra. Her strength and courage. Her humor and anger and how to tell if she was lying. They'd known her better than anyone. They were with her, always. Morning, noon, and night. Their squad, they saw the woman, the soldier, the warrior.

The Legion saw a girl. They saw some pretty young thing swept up into a sad, sad situation, whisked into the Captain's sheets and left with her dreams crushed.

They debated. Had he ensnared her or was it the other way around?

They saw her walk into the bathroom that day, white and aching, and thought "poor thing." They thought "Is that Levi's girl?"

She saw it in the way they looked at her, she smelled it on their breaths when they spoke about her. Felt it in the air when she walked into a room. But Petra, she wasn't Levi's girl. She'd never been his girl. They'd been something, they were something. But she didn't belong to anyone. That's not who she was in the Legion.

She was a soldier. One of the very best. The defender, the protector. A killer.

* * *

Losing her her squad - her family - and losing her almost-family that day in the forest built Petra up with scar tissue that resisted any and all practicality. She became impervious to the sweet words of those who meant well and those who did not mean so well.

The Legion was to rendezvous with remaining troops outside the wall, and she took a position on the support team without a second thought.

The first time she wore her gear since encountering the female titan, the weight sent a searing burn up her back and she could feel her knees threatening to buckle.

Levi glanced back when she did not catch up, and deja vu hit her in the face like a splash of cold water. He looked at her with those same eyes, the same quirk of the brow from when there had been a Spec Ops squad. Levi knew her in ways others didn't, but he never stopped seeing her as a soldier.

And before he could ask if she wanted to turn back, before he could ruin the memory, she ran ahead and shot into the sky.

Petra slapped away the label of "victim". She survived.


End file.
